Angela Edes Kitali, M.S.

About Me

I am currently a Ph.D student at Florida International University. I joined this program in May 2017 since then my research area has been focused on evaluating the efficiency of the new traffic management center in Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) district 2 (Jacksonville). I completed my masters in civil engineering with a focus in transportation engineering at the University of North Florida in April, 2017. My thesis focused on evaluation of the effects of pedestrian countdown signals to drivers using Bayesian statistics approaches. I graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Civil and Transportation Engineering from University of Dar es Salaam in July 2015. My undergraduate final year project involved people with disabilities policy in Tanzania and implementation setbacks.

Research

I have been fascinated by science and research since childhood. I made my own black shoe polish when I was in middle school. My interests in Civil Engineering with a major in Transportation Engineering unraveled during my undergraduate studies where I had an opportunity to work on a traffic engineering project “Strategy to Improve the Accessibility of Public Roads for People with Disabilities in Tanzania” as a part of my senior project. The knowledge and experience I gained as an undergraduate researcher encouraged me to join graduate studies where I could further pursue research opportunities in my field of study. During my studies at University of North Florida, I had the opportunity to work on different traffic operation, safety and micro-simulation research projects. These research opportunities have allowed me to apply my educational background in Civil and Transportation Engineering to help develop practical solutions for solving common issues on roadway network across the country.

TSM & O Strategies: Traffic Management

Identification of Secondary Crashes
Traffic incidents frequently affect traffic operations and hence impose social and personal costs on road users. These incidents account for more than a half of all urban traffic delays and almost all rural traffic delay. Furthermore, traffic incidents expose other vehicles to the risk of becoming involved in a secondary crash. My doctoral research is focused on evaluating the performance of the new Region Traffic Management Center (RTMC), Jacksonville-Florida, in improving incident response time and reducing secondary crashes. Unlike the previous regional TMCs, the new regional TMC (RTMC) has the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) staff, TMC operators, local agency traffic signal operators, traffic monitoring consultants, Jacksonville Sheriff Representatives, and the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) personnel under one roof. In response to the aforementioned RTMC quest, our research goal is to establish an effective and implementable secondary crash identification algorithm with a high accuracy rate. The study therefore aims at devising an approach, which takes advantage of the existing RTMC data sources and gives special attention to ease of integrating the developed algorithm with SunGuide, an incident management database used in Florida. The developed method would most probably use a hybrid of static and dynamic algorithms that employ data from the incident management system and detectors that record real-time performance measures.

Likelihood estimation of secondary crashes
The study focused on likelihood real-time estimation of secondary crashes using different statistical approaches. The findings of this study will help transportation agencies make more informed decisions on both identifying and mitigating SCs. The study results will help improve the incident management operations and to develop proactive traffic control strategies to prevent the occurrence of SCs on freeways.

Influence of rainfall on traffic flow
Inclement weather condition, rain in this case, adversely increase the formation of congestion formation and increase the number of reported incidents. This study focused on evaluating the influence of rainy weather on the dynamic evolution of traffic conditions using a Time-varying Markov Chain model. These findings are anticipated to enhance the understanding of the transition process of different traffic conditions over time, which in turn will facilitate in developing effective congestion countermeasures.
Sep. 2017-Accepted for presentation at the 97th Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting: Exploring the Influence of Rainfall on a Stochastic Evolution of Traffic Conditions.

Traffic Safety & Operation

Effects of pedestrian countdown signals to drivers

My master’s research focused on evaluating the safety effects of pedestrian countdown signals to drivers. Although pedestrian countdown signals (PCSs) are meant for pedestrians, they give cues to drivers on the remaining amount of green as the timer counts down. This study focuses on the evaluation of safety effectiveness of PCSs to drivers in the cities of Jacksonville and Gainesville, Florida.

Multiple-vehicle crashes involving at least two vehicles constitute over 70% of fatal and injury crashes in the U.S. Moreover, multiple-vehicle crashes involving three or more vehicles are usually more severe compared to the crashes involving only two vehicles. This study focuses on developing three plus multiple-vehicle crash severity models for a freeway section using real-time traffic data and crash data.

When involved in a vehicle-pedestrian collision, aging pedestrians are prone to a higher injury severity risk due to their reduced physical and cognitive abilities, compared to younger pedestrians. Considering the rareness of severe crashes, compared to non-severe crashes, this research aims at improving the accuracy of injury severity models and hence the risk factors that influence the severity of aging pedestrians.

Competition & Awards

One month ago I got a chance to be a part of and present at the 36th Annual National Lifesavers Conference on Highway Safety Priorities, April 22-24 in San Antonio, TX. I was honored to be one of 41 U.S., Canadian, and Belgium College students, selected through a competitive application process, who were named, the 2018 Traffic Safety Scholar (TSS) and awarded a $1,000 scholarship to attend this conference.

The Lifesavers Conference brings together a unique combination of public health and safety professionals, researchers, advocates, practitioners and students committed to sharing best practices, research, and policy initiatives that are proven to work. This was the third year of the Traffic Safety Scholars program, which provided college students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees the opportunity to attend the Lifesavers conference, which is the largest gathering of traffic safety professionals in the U.S.